R&D

SIGGRAPH ASIA 2009 Activities

2009-09-03T06:26:07Z

SIGGRAPH ASIA 2009
the 2nd SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition in ASIA
16-19 December 2009
Pacifico Yokohama / Yokohama Japan

[Sketches]: Session: Production Session 1: Pipeline
Title:Rich Background for Cel Animation　〈Program〉
Presented in English
Thursday, 17 December | 9:00 AM - 10:45 AM | Pacifico Yokohama Room 303/304
Presenters: Yosuke Katsura, Ken Anjyo (OLM Digital, Inc.); Session: Effects & Simulation
Title:Controlling Explosion Simulation　〈Program〉
Presented in English
Friday, 18 December | 11:00 AM - 12:45 AM | Pacifico Yokohama Room 501
Presenters: Yoshinori Dobashi, Shuhei Sato, Tsuyoshi Yamamoto (Hokkaido University), Ken Anjyo (OLM Digital, Inc.); Session: Production Session 2: Research & Technique
Title:Identifying Salient Points　〈Program〉
Presented in English
Saturday, 19 December | 9:00 AM - 10:45 AM | Pacifico Yokohama Level 5 - Auditorium
Presenters: J.P. Lewis (Weta Digital), Ken Anjyo (OLM Digital, Inc.); Session: Japanese Session 3: Effects Okonomiyaki
Title:Controlling Explosion Simulation　〈Program〉
Presented in Japanese
Saturday, 19 December | 4:15 PM - 6:30 PM | Pacifico Yokohama Room 416/417
Presenters: Yoshinori Dobashi, Shuhei Sato, Tsuyoshi Yamamoto (Hokkaido University), Ken Anjyo (OLM Digital, Inc.)

Title:Rich Background for Cel Animation　〈Program〉
Presented in Japanese
Saturday, 19 December | 4:15 PM - 6:30 PM | Pacifico Yokohama Room 416/417
Presenters: Yosuke Katsura, Ken Anjyo (OLM Digital, Inc.)
[Poster]: Session: Production
Title:Asset-Management System for Digital Production Workflow　〈Program〉
Presented in English
Thursday, 17 - Saturday 19 December
Thursday, 17 December 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM (Presentation) | Pacifico Yokohama Level 3 - Lounge
Presenters: Tatsuo Yotsukura, Miki Kinoshita, Satoru Yamagishi, Kazuyuki Ishihara, Yoshinori Moriizumi (OLM Digital, Inc.)
[Computer Animation Festival -Electronic Theater-]: Title:OLM Digital Works 2009　〈Program〉
Thursday, 17 December 19:00 - 21:00
Friday, 18 December 19:00 - 21:00
Saturday, 19 December 16:15 - 18:15, 19:00 - 21:00
Pacifico Yokohama Level 1, Main Hall

“OLM Digital Works 2009” is a showcase of OLM Digital creations, featuring “Crowd”, “Explosion” and “Water” from anime, live action movies and TV series. It demonstrates OLM Digital research and achievements in cutting edge CGI techniques.

　"Pokémon: Arceus Chōkoku no Jikū e" (2009, Kunihiko Yuyama, Film)
　"Pokémon: Giratina and the Sky Warrior" (2008, Kunihiko Yuyama, Film)
　"YATTERMAN" (2009, Takashi Miike, Film)
　"Phone Braver 7" (2008-9, Takashi Miike et. al, TV series)
　"Tenchijin" (2009, Drama)
　"Drive Soul" (2009, Short Film)
　"One Pair" (2008, Kunihiko Yuyama, Short Film)
　"KaiKai & KiKi" (2009, Takashi Murakami, Short Film)
[Course]: Title:Crowd Animation: Tools, Techniques, and Production Examples　〈Program〉
Presented in English
Friday, 18 December | 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM | Pacifico Yokohama Room 502
Presenters: Craig "Xray" Halpern　(ImageMovers Digital), Ken Anjyo (OLM Digital, Inc.), Mihai Cioroba (Digital Frontier Inc.), Paul Kanyuk (Pixar Animation Studios), Stephen Regelous (Massive Software), Takashi Yoshida (Digital Frontier Inc.), Marc Salvati (OLM Digital, Inc.); Title:Introduction to Using RenderMan　〈Program〉
Presented in English
Thursday, 17 December | 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM | Vantan Design Institute Yokohama Campus
Presenters: Malcolm Kesson (Savannah College of Art and Design), Yosuke Katsura (OLM Digital, Inc.)

[Talk] CEDEC 2009

2009-08-05T09:52:29Z

CEDEC 2009 (CESA Developers Conference 2009) (2009.9.1-3) - Title: "Gaming technology and SIGGRAPH ASIA" Ken Anjyo - Date: 2009. 9. 3 (Thu) 13:30-14:30 - Place: PACIFICO YOKOHAMA Conference Center (Minatomirai, Nishi-Ku, Yokohama) [MAP]

N-way morphing for 2D animation

2009-06-17T10:16:00Z

[Abstract]
We present a novel approach to the creation of varied animations by interpolating a small set of input images in a reduced pose-space. The technique includes an N-way mapping technique, an efficient, rigidity preserving nonlinear blending function, improved extrapolation and a novel scattered data interpolation technique to manage the reduced pose-space. Together these allow users to intuitively and interactively control temporal behaviours with simple gestures.

[Publication]
William Baxter, Pascal Barla, Ken Anjyo, "N-way Morphing for 2D Animation", The Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual World (CASA 2009), Volume 20, issue 2-3, pp.79-87, June 17-19 2009

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[DEMO] (12.7MB, no sound)

Stylized Lighting for Cartoon Shader

2009-06-17T09:59:30Z

Animation example - Left: our stylized lighting result. Middle: close-up of the conventional lighting result with a point light. Right: close-up of our stylized lighting result.
Edge lighting and detail lighting effects on the aircraft. First we edited the edge lighting effect of highlight to emphasize its sharpness, and then added the detail lighting effect for its bumpiness.

[Abstract]
We propose a 3D stylized lighting method, focusing on several stylized effects including straight lighting, edge lighting, and detail lighting which are important features in hand-drawn cartoon animation. To accomplish these, we introduce a light coordinate system for smooth animation of light and shade. We also extend a toon mapping process for detailed feature lighting.

[Publication]
Hideki Todo, Ken Anjyo, Takeo Igarashi, "Stylized Lighting for Cartoon Shader", The Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual World (CASA 2009), Volume 20, issue 2-3, pp.143-152, June 17-19 2009

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[Example1] (1.48MB, no sound)

[Example2] (3.35MB, no sound)

[Example3] (4.48MB, no sound)

[System Overview] (6.22MB, no sound)

Animating Pictures of Fluid using Video Examples

2009-06-04T07:26:26Z

Our system allows the user to design a continuous flow animation starting from a fluid picture by semi-automatically applying the fluid motion extracted from the video example. The upper example animates a campfire in our artist's painting using a fire video. The botom example animates a water surface in Johannes Vermeer's painting using an ocean video.

[Abstract]
We propose a system that allows the user to design a continuous flow animation starting from a still fluid image. The basic idea is to apply the fluid motion extracted from a video example to the target image. The system first decomposes the video example into three components, an average image, a flow field and residuals. The user then specifies equivalent information over the target image. The user manually paints the rough flow field, and the system automatically refines it using the estimated gradients of the target image. The user semi-automatically transfers the residuals onto the target image. The system then approximates the average image and synthesizes an animation on the target image by adding the transferred residuals and warping them according to the user-specified flow field. Finally, the system adjusts the appearance of the resulting animation by applying histogram matching. We designed animations of various pictures, such as rivers, waterfalls, fires, and smoke.

[Publication]
Makoto Okabe, Ken Anjyo, Takeo Igarashi, Hans-Peter Seidel,"Animating Pictures of Fluid using Video Examples", Computer Graphics Forum (EUROGRAPHICS 2009 Special Issue), vol.28. No.2, pp.677-686, March 30 - April.3 2009)

[Demo/Project Page]

[Invited Talk] Pacific Graphics 2008

2008-09-20T08:43:02Z

The Pacific Conference on Computer Graphics and Applications [Pacific Graphics 2008] (2008.10.8 -10) - Title: "Exploring Directability" Ken Anjyo - Date: 2008. 10. 8 (Thu)　9:20－10:00 - Place: SANJO Conference Hall [MAP]

SIGGRAPH 2008 Activities

2008-07-01T01:00:00Z

We have an exciting lineup of presentations that you won’t want to miss. Start marking your calendar today !

SIGGRAPH2008
the 35th International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques
11-15 August 2008
Los Angeles Convention Center, LA, California, USA

Computer Animation Festival

Title: One Pair
Competition Screening 4 Wednesday, 13 August 5:45 - 7:45 pm
Competition Screening 7 Friday, 15 August 10:30 am - 12:30 pm
Nokia Theatre
The Audience Prize vote number : CAF08 36093

© 2008, OLM, Inc. All rights reserved.

Talk

Title: Extracting Higher-Level Information From Facial Mocap
J.P. Lewis (Weta Digital), Ken Anjyo (OLM Digital)

Raw motion-capture data is valuable information, but it is often in a form that is difficult to use. More work needs to be done on extraction of usable and "semantic" representations from raw motion-capture data. This session presents several examples of mathematical operations on mocap that extract higher-level information, including automatic definitions of regions of influence, identification of salient points, and maps of the importance of various points on the face for communicating emotion and speech.

Session: Smile for the Camera
Monday, 11 August 3:45 pm - 5:30 pm
502 A

Job Fair:

CG ARTIST

Animator(Experience in Maya required)
Lighting Artist(Maya)
Compositing Artist(After Effects, Combustion, Flame, shake, nuke)

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT

Production Assistant for CG Projects ( CG production knowledge and/or experience preferable. )

SOFTWARE TD

Write custom software for CG productions

CG RESEARCHER

Research solutions to tomorrow’s CG production needs

Tuesday, 12 August 10 am - 4 pm
Wednesday, 13 August 10 am - 4 pm
Thursday, 14 August 10 am - 1 pm
Hall K (adjacent to Exhibition) Booth 35

Booth Presentation:

A presentation of the in-house feather system used in our short film "One Pair" will be held in the Pixar booth in the exhibition hall. The booth has a theatre which seats approximately 100 people.

Title:RenderMan in Our Studios: "One pair", "Pokémon" and beyond
Youske Katsura (OLM Digital), Bernard Edlington (Nexus International LLC)

Japanese: Tuesday, 12 August 1 pm - 1:30 pm
English: Wednesday, 13 August 1 pm - 1:30 pm

Notes on compatible mapping of 2D shapes

2008-06-24T02:03:00Z

OLMTRE-2008-002
"Notes on compatible 2D shape embedding"
W. Baxter, P. Barla, and K. Anjyo

(64KB)

Compatible embedding for 2D shape animation

2008-06-24T02:01:00Z

OLMTRE-2008-001
"Compatible embedding for 2D shape animation"
W.Baxter, P. Barla, and K. Anjyo

(2.37MB) (12.3MB) (22.2MB)

Directable Animation of Elastic Bodies with Point-Constraints

2008-06-23T02:19:48Z

We propose a simple framework for making elastic body animation with point constraints. In general, a physics-based approach for constraint animation offers a variety of animations with physically correct realism, which are achieved by solving the equations of motion. However, in the digital animation industry, solving the equations of motion is an indirect path to creating more art-directed animations that maintain a plausible realism. Our algorithms provide animators a practical way to make elastic body animation with plausible realism, while effectively using point-constraints to offer directatorial control. The animation examples illustrate that our framework creates a wide variety of point-constraint animations of elastic objects with greater directability than existing methods.

　　
[ A (left)] Initial animation. Point-to-point constraints are applied between the characters and the bench. One of the constraints between the fish and the bench is turned off near the end of the animation (the bottom of [A]).
[ B (middle)] Directing the duck by making keyframes so that the duck is pulling and throwing the fishes.
[ C (right)] Final animation. The user modifies the trajectory so that the fish can reach the big duck. At the instant of collision, a new point-to-point constraint is added, so the fish sticks to the big duck.

[Publication]
Ryo Kondo, Ken Anjyo,"Directable Animation of Elastic Bodies with Point-Constraints", In The Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual World (CASA 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3-4, pp.165-173, Seoul, Korea, Sept. 1-3 2008)

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Rigid Shape Interpolation Using Normal Equations

2008-04-18T01:57:51Z

We provide a new compact formulation of rigid shape interpolation in terms of normal equations, and propose several enhancements to previous techniques.
Specifically, we propose

a way to improve mesh independence, making the interpolation result less influenced by variations in tessellation,
a faster way to make the interpolation symmetric,
simple modifications to enable controllable interpolation. Finally we also identify
a failure mode related to large rotations that is easily triggered in practical use, and we present a solution for this as well.

Animation: Rigid Morphing with large rotations:
For small enough rotations the “as-rigid-as-possible” technique generates high-quality interpolations. However, large rotations can lead to inconsistencies that cause artifacts such as those shown here (right). Our technique yields consistent rotations, resulting in the expected rigid interpolation (left).

[Publication]
William Baxter, Pascal Barla, Ken-ichi Anjyo,"Rigid Shape Interpolation Using Normal Equations", In Proc. NPAR2008, The 6th International Symposium on Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering (NPAR 2008, pp.59-64, Annecy, France, June 9-11 2008)

[Award 2007] The 22nd Digital Contents Grand Prix

2007-10-11T11:12:13Z

・The 22nd Digital Contents Grand Prix Technical Achievement Award: "LoCoStySh (= Locally Controllable Stylized Shading)" 　　OLM Digital, Inc. (Ken Anjyo, Yosuke Katsura, William Baxter) 　　Univ. of Tokyo (Hideki Todo, Takeo Igarashi) by DCAJ (Digital Content Association of Japan.)

　　

Recruitment

2007-08-01T08:40:04Z

Depending upon skills of applicant, duties range from creating software plugins and artist tools to designing and deploying network server and renderfarm solutions. Contact us: Software utilized: C++, Python, Windows, Linux, Maya, Renderman Spoken language(s): Japanese / English Recent / Ongoing Projects Animé: Pokémon, Monkey Turn, Dobutsu-no-mori, Tamagocchi Live Action: Crows Zero, Sukiyaki Western Django, The Great Yokai War, Imprint

SIGGRAPH 2007 Activities

2007-07-05T04:41:20Z

SIGGRAPH2007
the 34th International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques

5-9 August 2007
San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California, USA

Paper:
Monday, 6 August 3:45 - 5:30 pm, Room 6AB & CF

Session: Shape Depiction and Stylization
Title: "Locally Controllable Stylized Shading"
Hideki Todo, Ken-ichi Anjyo, William Baxter, Takeo Igarashi
A set of simple stylized shading algorithms that allow the user to freely add localized light and shade in a manner that is consistent with conventional lighting techniques.

Sketch:
Thursday, 9 August 1:45 - 3:30 pm, Room 4

Session: Looking Good
Title: "Anime Perspective"
Yosuke Katsura, Ken Anjyo
Two tools for creating images with anime perspective, a surreal view used in traditional animations: Anime-Pers deformer and Anime-Lens shader.

Poster:
place: Sails Pavilion
[Poster Presentations]
Monday, 6 August 12:15 - 1:15 pm
Wednesday, 8 August 12:15 - 1:15 pm
[Poster]
Sunday, 5 August 8:30 am - 5:30 pm
Monday, 6 August 8:30 am - 5:30 pm
Tuesday, 7 August 8:30 am - 5:30 pm
Wednesday, 8 August 8:30 am - 5:30 pm
Thursday, 9 August 8:30 am - noon

Category: F14(Animation)
Title: "Directable Crowd Animation"
Wataru Ishihara (NHK), Ken Anjyo

Locally Controllable Stylized Shading

2007-07-01T12:21:37Z

Recent progress in non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) has led to many stylized shading techniques that efficiently convey visual information about the objects depicted. Another crucial goal of NPR is to give artists simple and direct ways to express the abstract ideas born of their imaginations. In particular, the ability to add intentional, but often unrealistic, shading effects is indispensable for many applications. We propose a set of simple stylized shading algorithms that allow the user to freely add localized light and shade to a model in a manner that is consistent and seamlessly integrated with conventional lighting techniques. The algorithms provide an intuitive, direct manipulation method based on a paint-brush metaphor, to control and edit the light and shade locally as desired. Our prototype system demonstrates how our method can enhance both the quality and range of applicability of conventional stylized shading for offline animation and interactive applications.

Figure: Comparison of conventional toon shading (up) with our result (below). Edits were made at the three key frames indicated

[DEMO Movie] (27MB, with sound)

More Examples

[Publication]　 (4.54MB)
Hideki Todo, Ken-ichi Anjyo, William Baxter, Takeo Igarashi, "Locally Controllable Stylized Shading", ACM Transactions on Graphics Volume 26, Issue 3, Article No.17 (SIGGRAPH2007, August 5-9 2007, San Diego, USA) 　　

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[Example1] Editing shade and highlights (17MB, with sound)

The animation created using a standard cartoon shader was modified using our techniques. First the excessive highlight on the forehead was removed using the intensity brush, and then the boundary brush was used to create a light region around the chin, which was otherwise invisible.

[Example2] Modifying shading with gradations (15MB, with sound)

Here our prototype system has been used to make a directional lighting setup appear to be a more dramatic back-lit situation.

[Example3] Editing light and shade on a highly deforming object (27MB, with sound)

Using the intensity brush, we edited the light and/or dark areas on the deforming cape under rapidly changing lighting conditions.

R&D